Amazon scores another college textbook publisher for Kindle DX

Amazon is making progress getting the major college textbook publishers on board with its Kindle electronic reader. Today, McGraw-Hill Education said it will begin offering 100 higher education titles on the Kindle. McGraw-Hill joins the other major textbook publishers, Cengage Learning, Pearson, and Wiley, which are already selling Kindle editions. Amazon is positioning its new large-screen Kindle DX reader as a replacement for physical textbooks -- and needs to get as many titles as possible into electronic form.

When Amazon announced the Kindle DX in May, it said Cengage Learning, Pearson, and Wiley were all part of the project, but McGraw-Hill's name was conspicuously absent. Now, with McGraw-Hill in the lineup, the Kindle DX can offer titles from the four biggest textbook publishers. According to Subtext, a monthly newsletter covering the book publishing industry, the top four college publishers by 2008 annual sales were Cengage ($1.7 billion), Pearson ($1.6 billion), McGraw-Hill ($610 million), and Wiley ($230 million).

McGraw-Hill said the textbook titles will be used in on-campus pilot programs with the Kindle DX this fall. Amazon and a handful of universities (including the University of Washington) are providing Kindle DXs to some students to test as a textbook replacement.

"The modern student body increasingly requires digital access and capabilities, and we are pleased to be strengthening our partnership with Amazon to help meet these critical needs," said Ed Stanford, president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education, in a statement.

Will students take to the Kindle DX? The devices would be certainly easier to lug around than a pile of books. Students spend a lot of money on textbooks today, though the Kindle DX, currently priced at $489, isn't cheap either.

Follow my updates on Twitter.

About Eric Engleman

ERIC ENGLEMAN is senior technology staff writer for TechFlash and the Puget Sound Business Journal, covering online retail giant Amazon.com. Engleman tracks Amazon's increasingly complex business, spanning ecommerce, Kindle, cloud computing, and more. He's been covering technology and other industries for the Business Journal since 2003.

READ FULL BIOGRAPHY

206-876-5430

@ericengleman

Recent Sponsor Posts

Seattle University Software Engineering

Chinwe Okeke (MSE’08) pursued her graduate degree while working as a developer and technical analyst for the Boeing Company. She picked the SU-MSE program for small class sizes and real world learning opportunities offered through the academic service-learning and capstone projects.

The MSE program at Seattle University is geared for working professionals with classes offered in the evenings. The program builds upon the computing experience of its students and offers courses in a variety of technical and management areas of software engineering, with an emphasis on teamwork and a disciplined approach to problem solving.

MORE INFORMATION

Marchex is Hiring!

Marchex is one of Seattle’s largest ad technology companies with 300+ employees providing call and click based performance marketing products, and managing over $100m in ad budget for tens of thousands of advertisers. Our customers range from local businesses to the Fortune 500.

Our talented and creative product engineering group is hiring.

If you are an innovative software design engineer interested in solving difficult problems at scale, across a wide array of technologies from Lucene to Hadoop to Asterisk and SIP then we’d love to hear from you!

Apply now.

MORE INFORMATION

Technology Tax Planning – Did You Take The Deduction?

Technology companies require professional advisors who can assist in all aspects of the business. The BDO Technology Practice provides a full range of services tailored to help address the changing needs of domestic and international companies. In addition to core audit and tax services, BDO professionals can assist technology companies with:

· Revenue recognition

· Business combination accounting

· R&D tax credits

· Compensation and benefits

· Business valuations

Backed by 38 national offices and an international network in 110 countries, we have the domestic and global footprint to serve growing technology companies. Contact sphilpott@bdo.com (audit partner), mreeves@bdo.com (audit partner), psmith@bdo.com (tax partner), tzambito@bdovaluation.us.com (valuation), tfiscus@bdo.com, Director, 206.624.2020

MORE INFORMATION